"I'm going to show you something else! I show it to you because I trust you. It's like your telling me about your making gold out of lead." He opened a door of the ambry, pulled out a drawer, and, pressing some spring, revealed a narrow, secret shelf. His hand went into the dimness and came out bearing a silver goblet. This he set carefully upon a neighboring table, and looked at Alexander somewhat aslant out of long, golden-brown eyes.
"It's a bonny goblet," said Alexander. "Why do you keep it like that?"
Ian looked around him. "Years and years ago my father, who is dead now, was in France. There was a banquet at Saint-Germain. A very great person gave it and was in presence himself. All the gentlemen his guests drank a toast for which the finest wine was poured in especial goblets. Afterward each was given for a token the cup from which he drank. … Before he died my father gave me this. But of course I have to keep it secret. My uncle and all the world around here are Whigs!"
"James Stewart!" quoth Alexander. "Humph!"
"Remember that you have not seen it," said Ian, "and that I never said aught to you but King George, King George!" With that he restored the goblet to the secret shelf, put back the drawer, and shut the ambry door. "Friends trust one another in little and big.—Now let's go see Aunt Alison."
They went in silence along a corridor where every footfall was subdued in India matting. Alexander spoke once:
"I feel all through me that we're friends. But you're a terrible fool there!"
"I am not," said Ian. His voice carried the truth of his own feeling. "I am like my father and mother and the chieftains my kin, and I have been with certain kings ever since there were kings. Others think otherwise, but I've got my rights!"
With that they came to the open door of a room. A voice spoke from within:
"Ian!"
Ian crossed the threshold. "May we come in, Aunt Alison? It's Alexander Jardine of Glenfernie."
A tall, three-leaved screen pictured with pagodas, palms, and macaws stood between the door and the rest of the room. "Come, of course!" said the voice behind this.
Passing the last pagoda edge, the two entered a white-paneled parlor where a lady in dove-gray muslin overlooked the unpacking of fine china. She turned in the great chair where she sat. "I am truly glad to see Alexander Jardine!" When he went up to her she took his two hands in hers. "I remember your mother and how fine a lassie she was! Good mind and good heart—"
"We've heard of you, too," answered Alexander. He looked at her in frank admiration, Eh, but you're bonny! written in his gaze.
Mrs. Alison, as they called her, was something more than bonny. She had loveliness. More than that, she breathed a cleanliness of spirit, a lucid peace, a fibered self-mastery passing into light. Alexander did not analyze his feeling for her, but it was presently one of great liking. Now she sat in her great chair while the maids went on with the unpacking, and questioned him about Glenfernie and all the family and life there. She was slight, not tall, with hair prematurely white, needing no powder. She sat and talked with her hand upon Ian. While she talked she glanced from the one youth to the other. At last she said:
"Alexander Jardine, I love Ian dearly. He needs and will need love—great love. If you are going to be friends, remember that love is bottomless.—And now go, the two of you, for the day is getting on."
They passed again the macaw-and-pagoda screen and left the paneled room. The August light struck slant and gold. The two quitted the house and crossed the terrace into the avenue without again encountering the master of the place.
"I will go with you to the top of the hill," said Ian. They climbed the ridge that was like a purple cloud. "I'll come to Glenfernie to-morrow or the next day."
"Yes, come! I'm fond of Jamie, but he's three years younger than I."
"You've got a sister?"
"Alice? She's only twelve. You come. I've been wanting somebody."
"So have I. I'm lonelier than you."
They came to the level top of the heath. The sun rode low; the shadow of the hill stretched at their feet, out over path and harvest-field.
"Good-by, then!"
"Good-by!"
Ian stood still. Alexander, homeward bound, dropped over the crest. The earth wave hid from him Black Hill, house and all. But, looking back, he could still see Ian against the sky. Then Ian sank, too. Alexander strode on toward Glenfernie. He went whistling, in expanded, golden spirits. Ian—and Ian—and Ian! Going through a grove of oaks, blackbirds flew overhead, among and above the branches. The cranes of Ibycus! The phrase flashed into mind. "I wonder why things like that disturb me so! … I wonder if there's any bottom or top to living anyhow! … I wonder—!" He looked at the birds and at the violet evening light at play in the old wood. The phrase went out of his mind. He left the remnant of the forest and was presently upon open moor. He whistled again, loud and clear, and strode on happily. Ian—and Ian—and Ian!
CHAPTER V
The House of Glenfernie and the House of Touris became friends. A round of country festivities, capped by a great party at Black Hill, wrought bonds of acquaintanceship for and with the Scots family returned after long abode in England. Archibald Touris spent money with a cautious freedom. He set a table and poured a wine better by half than might be found elsewhere. He kept good horses and good dogs. Laborers who worked for him praised him; he proved a not ungenerous landlord. Where he recognized obligations he met them punctually. He had large merchant virtues, no less than the accompanying limitations. He returned to the Church of Scotland.
The laird of Glenfernie and the laird of Black Hill found constitutional impediments to their being more friendly than need be. Each was polite to the other to a certain point, then the one glowered and the other scoffed. It ended in a painstaking keeping of distance between them, a task which, when they were in company, fell often to Mrs. Jardine. She did it with tact, with a twist of her large, humorous mouth toward Strickland if he were by. Admirable as she was, it was curious to see the difference between her method, if method there were, and that of Mrs. Alison. The latter showed no effort, but where she was there fell harmony. William Jardine liked her, liked to be in the room with her. His great frame and her slight one, his rough, massive, somewhat unshaped personality and her exquisite clearness contrasted finely enough. Her brother, who understood her very little, yet had for her an odd, appealing affection, strange in one who had so positively settled what was life and the needs of life. It was his habit to speak of her as though she were more helplessly dependent even than other women. But at times there might be seen who was more truly the dependent.
August passed into September, September into brown October. Alexander and Ian were almost continually in company. The attraction between them was so great that it appeared as though it must stretch backward into some unknown seam of time. If they had differences, these apparently only served in themselves to keep them revolving the one about the other. They might almost quarrel, but never enough to drag their two orbs apart, breaking and rending from the common center. The sun might go down upon a kind of wrath, but it rose on hearts with the difference forgotten. Their very unlikenesses pricked each on to seek himself in the other.
They
